The Ned Wood Archive

This Loneliness that You call Freedom

I went to see her on the Tuesday night.  The bus from the hall went just near her place.  Down the Portswood Road, just past the shops, there’s this overgrown patch of ground.  Her place was down a side street just the other side.  She was sharing with a couple other girls, but I rarely saw them.  In fact it seemed as if the debates she used to chair were a thing of the past.  We’d sit at her kitchen table or in her front room.  They were the only rooms I saw.  It was tidier than most student houses I saw and I think that was Mary’s influence.  She seemed to be totally at home and totally in control.  She’d painted the walls warm dark colours, like green or maroon.  She’d found an old lounge suite which would probably last a couple more years.  She’d built a bookshelf out of bricks and boards, which was typical of so many places, but this was neater, because she’d draped some old material over the bricks so it looked really smart.

She made me tea and we settled back into the chairs.  I was jealous.  She looked as if she’d arrived.  She’d got a house and I was still in the Hall of Residence.  She’d got a sofa and I’d got a standard issue chair.  She’d got rooms.  Two rooms, three, maybe more; I’d only got one.  She told me she found the place during the last week of term.  In fact she vaguely knew the other two girls and they invited her in.  She said they were sensible folk.  That counted for something with our Mary.  The three of them had been down for a few days during the holiday doing it up, painting and the like.  I asked her if she wanted any help – I desperately wanted to join in, but she’d done everything.  She’d only just been back up home to fetch some of her Mam’s old cooking stuff when she stopped in at our place.

I asked her why she’d called me and why she’d been to stay with us at home.  “Because I like you” she said with a laugh.  It was as if I’d asked the most obvious question in the world.  She liked me and I was learning to accept that was as far as I’d get.  I told her I had to do some work and left.  Truth was I didn’t want to enjoy myself too much.  Do you ever get like that?  Something told me I should be away working, suffering, not having a pleasant chat.  Truth also was, I wanted to find out the score – we were playing Bristol Rovers in the Cup replay.  Usually you can sneak a look at the result when no-one’s watching, like when we went shopping on the Saturday, it was easy to swing by a TV shop at about five to five and catch the classifieds.  But Mary didn’t have a TV – no-one ever had TVs at their houses, at least only the third years, so if I wanted to know the score before I got a paper the next day, I had to be back to catch the tail end of the news.  Truth also also was, I still got uncomfortable trying to keep a conversation going.

We’d drawn 1-1 again.  Denny told me as I entered the TV room.  He reminded me that we’d drawn Southampton at  home in the next round.  You always think that you’ll win any replay you get, so you never say “We’ve drawn Southampton if we get through”.  You always say, “We’ve got Southampton next” as if it’s guaranteed.  The tricky bit was trying to decide whether you wanted to win the home game or get a replay and then win.  The advantage of there being a replay was of course that you’d be able to go.  We’d missed the league game at the Dell cos it was in September before term started.  A cup replay would be the only chance we’d have of seeing Forest play in Southampton.  Seeing the Trickies is almost as important as winning.  Denny was excited, but I kept it at a distance.  I can never get excited about one all draws.  Strange, but as soon as I’d left Mary, I’d wanted to go back.  I must stop running away.  It’s like when I’m out, all I want to do is get back home safely.  But when I’m home I realise there’s nothing there.  At least, there’s nothing in my room at the hall.  For all my posters and albums, it’s cold.  It’s not a home like the place I’d just visited.

I can’t get excited about drawing away from home.  You never can.  If any result is neutral, it’s an away draw.  Drawing at home is bad because it’s points lost.  Losing is always bad, winning is always magic.  Away draws are ‘so what?’.  We weren’t out of the Cup, but we weren’t in the next round yet.  Just in limbo.  However, what I was excited about, was Bowie’s new album which would be out on the Saturday.  I kept myself from thinking exclusively about Mary in her cosy new home by planning my assault on the record shops of Southampton.  I’d get up early and catch the bus down and check out Smiths and Virgin to see which was the cheapest.  Then I’d head back and listen to it.  First guy on the block with it.

Three Pounds and Nine it cost me.  I was expecting something like the Bowie of old – I don’t know why, but maybe we’d get a bit of Diamond Dogs or Ziggy, with Eno’s embellishments on top.  You know, those little tricky bits he does that turn plain songs into classics.  I slapped on side one, which is more like Another Green World – bits and pieces of music, short ideas not fully developed, maybe a song here or a tune there, but disjointed, unsettling.  Each one could be taken in isolation and used to create a mood, just like with Another Green World.  Many were unmistakably Bowie.  One or two caught you immediately, like Sound and Vision.  Sometimes when you play a new album, you know you’ll love it from the first two tracks.  Diamond Dogs was like that, so was Aladdin Sane.  But the feeling I got with Low as I flipped the vinyl over was that I’d reserve judgement.  I wanted something more. 

The second side blew me away.  Four instrumentals.  No songs.  No hits.  No tunes.  Four moods.  And what moods they were.  Truly they take you down Low and leave you.  I sat in my empty standard issue room and listened.  

Warsawa, at first stately, regal, but soon turning sad, lonely.  The whispering which on early Roxy tracks like the Pride and the Pain or For Your Pleasure was exciting, was here paranoiac.  Something in the music, the chord changes perhaps, hinted at something brighter.  Half remembered tunes stood on the threshold then turned away and left you.  Any thought of an upturn in mood would quickly vanish into depression.  And finally the track disappears in a scream.  A long wounded scream, quiet, not reaching martyrdom.  Fading like a new dawn.

The Art Decade starting light but soon decaying too, bringing you back to the downward spiral.

Weeping Wall with its chopping synths again promising to lift you up, but the undercurrent carried by the guitar brings you back.  Down.  Low.  Whatever it is that is following you is catching up.

The Subterraneans do catch up with you.  Are they alien?  They certainly sound unworldly.  Slow ponderous creatures.  But slowly the human voice appears and you realise that they are in fact human.  You strain to catch what they are saying, but only one phrase filters through to the inside of your mind.  “Failing Star”.  A sax kicks in, at first warm, but soon cold, mingling with the voices, not quite screaming.  And when you want to join in yourself and give throat to a Munch inspiring shriek, they fade and leave you alone.  In your room.  You never leave your room.

Everything dies.

It’s as ugly a sound as chalk on a blackboard.  It’s hateful.  It’s compelling.  Whenever you want to let yourself go and sink into the abyss, this is the soundtrack.

And I sat in my room listening.  Cold.  Alone.